Elizabeth Holmes is the convicted fraudster at the center of Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s hit documentary “You Can See Everything,” but for many viewers, it was her longtime partner, Billy Evans, who became the film’s flagship villain.
Evans, 34, comes from a wealthy San Diego hotel family and supported Holmes when her blood-testing startup Theranos collapsed and she was convicted in 2022 of defrauding investors. The couple have two children, William, 5, and Invicta, 3. While Holmes serves an 11-year federal prison sentence in Texas, Evans is raising his children while pursuing his own biotechnology company.
In the film – warning: spoilers ahead – Evans comes across as controlling and increasingly volatile, taking over from Holmes as she whisks eggs, interrupting an interview to demand that the cameras be turned off, and at one point casually brushing her teeth while standing completely naked in the shower, as Fielder looks on awkwardly. It talks about Holmes who has devoted his life to building “monuments of love” for him, and who, in a heated confrontation, threatens to ruin the lives of people he believes have wronged him. “I have revenge in my heart,” he says.
So who is Evans, how did he end up with one of Silicon Valley’s most infamous figures and what is he doing now?
What do we know about Evans’ education?
Evans grew up in a wealthy and prominent San Diego family. His grandparents, William and Anne Evans, founded Evans Hotels in 1953, opening what became the Bahia Resort Hotel in Mission Bay. The family business later expanded to include the Catamaran Resort Hotel and Spa and the Lodge at Torrey Pines in La Jolla.
Evans attended the Francis Parker School, an exclusive private school in San Diego, before earning a degree in economics from MIT in 2015. Despite his family’s wealth, Evans is neither an employee nor a shareholder of Evans Hotels, according to a statement released by the company on October 1.
Her family reportedly initially had reservations about her relationship with Holmes. But his father, also named William, became a supporter — and even infiltrated his fraud trial in 2021. According to NPR, the elder Evans introduced himself to jury selection under the name “Hanson,” introducing himself to reporters as a concerned citizen who fixed old cars for a living. His expensive loafers and a Starbucks cup with a different name eventually aroused suspicion.
How did Evans meet Holmes?
The two met on October 7, 2017, at a Fleet Week party hosted by a venture capitalist in San Francisco, according to Evans. Theranos was already embroiled in scandal, even though Holmes had not yet been criminally charged.
In the documentary, Evans recalls that he didn’t recognize Holmes at first because she was wearing a floppy hat, dark sunglasses and a bandage on her face from a scratch from her husky. He says he fell in love with her almost immediately. When Fielder points out that he could barely see his face, Evans responds, “I guess that wasn’t what mattered to me.”
Nathan Fielder watches Elizabeth Holmes with her family in “You Can See Everything.”
(A24)
Holmes says the attraction was mutual. The two became friends and began dating about six months later, just weeks before she was indicted on federal fraud charges.
Fielder asks Evans if he was initially worried that Holmes might deceive him. “100%,” Evans responds, before asking what she would have had to gain from him. “Well, isn’t your family rich?” » asks the defender.
Pressed for family money, Evans becomes visibly uncomfortable and cuts the conversation short, saying he has to go to a cousin’s event.
How does Evans cope with life with Holmes in prison?
Since Holmes entered federal prison in May 2023, Evans has been raising their two children in Austin, Texas, bringing them to visit her at the Bryan federal prison camp. Holmes is expected to be moved to a halfway house outside Austin in August.
During an appearance last week on the technology podcast “All-In,” Evans described the difficulty of the experience. “It’s tough because I’m starting a business, trying to get my wife out of federal prison and raising two kids,” he said.
Although Evans regularly refers to Holmes as his wife, Holmes said in a 2025 interview with People from prison that they were not legally married: “Maybe we will get married one day, but our bond is more than a piece of paper.” » The two got engaged in 2018, reportedly at a Taylor Swift concert.
Is Evans trying to revive Theranos?
After graduating from MIT, Evans reportedly attempted to start a medical concierge service before working at companies such as LinkedIn and Luminar Technologies, which developed lidar systems for autonomous vehicles.
In 2022, he founded Haemanthus, a biotechnology startup developing technology for analyzing biological samples using lasers. The company hopes to make diagnostic tests cheaper and more accessible — a mission that may sound awfully familiar to anyone who has followed the rise and fall of Theranos.
Haemanthus has reportedly raised millions of dollars but has yet to release a commercial product. Eric Potma, a chemistry professor at UC Irvine and a consultant for the company, told Wired this week that its technology is worth exploring despite significant technical challenges. “Haemanthus engineers are legitimate,” he said.
Holmes’ name does not appear in Haemanthus’ governing documents, according to Wired. But in the documentary, the pair discuss plans for a new diagnostics business, with Evans speaking openly about his desire to reignite his original ambitions.
“The idea is to get the band back together and start all over again,” Evans told Fielder.
How did Evans respond to “You Can See Everything”?
Evans and Holmes agreed to participate in the documentary in hopes of changing the public’s perception of it. Early in the film, Evans explains that they wanted to give the filmmakers extraordinary access to their daily lives, adopting what he calls “radical transparency.”
But Evans’ commitment to transparency had its limits. In the film, he repeatedly attempts to shut down uncomfortable conversations and, in a re-enacted meeting on camera, demands a share of the documentary’s profits — an arrangement that Fielder fears could compromise the integrity of the project. Evans ultimately agreed to forgo the payment.
At the documentary’s surprise premiere at the Telluride Film Festival in September, Fielder acknowledged that his relationship with Evans had deteriorated as the project progressed.
“We felt like Billy was trying to exert a lot of control over the process, and that kind of caused a bit of a breakdown in our communication,” Fielder said during a Q&A after the screening. “The hardest part is that he’s sort of a go-between for her.”
Speaking on the “All-In” podcast before seeing the finished film, Evans admitted that taking part might prove to be a mistake. “I haven’t seen it yet,” he said. “I might think that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”
Evans attended a private screening of the documentary on October 16, followed by an off-the-record conversation with Bryan Johnson, the tech entrepreneur known for his elaborate efforts to reverse aging.
In an article on X the following day, Johnson called the film a “masterpiece” and described Evans as “magnanimous in conversation.” Although Johnson said he gave Evans every opportunity to defend himself and “fight back because Fielder roughed him up,” Evans refused.
Evans responded publicly, thanking Johnson for handling their conversation with care. “When the world is against you and the pain is so real,” Evans wrote, “it means so much that people like you show such kindness.”
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